Samsung Reviews, Rumors and Upcoming News

In the space of a week, the story that Samsung could buy Blackberry in a $7.5 billion deal has turned into a mini saga. Reuters first reported the news last week, claiming to have seen documental evidence, but Blackberry denied the story, while Samsung said they would work with Blackberry but not buy the company. Reuters stuck to its guns though on the back of that documental evidence and it seems that document has now surfaced.

While Samsung's slide has not reached crisis point in terms of market share and sales, it is certainly at crisis point within the company. Insiders know this is more than a slump, it is a trending slide that needs to be dealt with now or it will never stop. The Galaxy S6 is being viewed as the new dawn, a device created from the drawing board and taking the company in a while new direction. However, according to analysts, Samsung's slide will continue even if the S6 is a success, which honestly it almost certainly will be.

A report last week from Reuters suggested Blackberry and Samsung were in talks for the latter to buy the former for $7.5 billion. The outlet said that the Korean giant is interested in Blackberry's significant portfolio of patents, not so much its hardware. Blackberry quickly responded by denying the reports, and now Samsung (although taking a little longer) has done the same.

This month we have seen the first smartphones packing 4GB of RAM land in the form of the Asus ZenFone 2 and Xiaomi's Mi Note Pro. Both of those devices pack 64-bit processors and according to sources in Korea, Samsung will match those devices with the launch of the Galaxy S6, with the handset possibly coming with two variants.

Samsung's 2014 was not what the company expected, and the problems the world?s largest smartphone maker experienced have been well documented. 2015 will need to see an improvement for the Korean giant, but the bad news from 2014 has not been left behind entirely as it was revealed by CCID Consulting that the company's market share in China fell by 31.5% through 2014.

Samsung's recently launched Galaxy E5 and Galaxy E7 budget smartphones were confirmed for India when they launched last week. Sammy did not elaborate on other regions that would get the handset, but the company has now confirmed that the E range will not be exclusive to India.

Samsung has been accused of copying Apple for a number of years, but the Korean company took a while to deliver the same build quality as its rival. The company's latest smartphones have been built with premium materials and there seems more attention to detail in aesthetic aspects. A big part of the new design turn from Samsung has come from the company's Design Management Center, headed up by 47-year old Lee Don-tae.

As I have written previously, Samsung's plans for its Tizen operating system extend far beyond the launch of the Z1, the first smartphone running the platform, which was launched yesterday. The company already has Tizen smartwatches and Tizen TVs, and the Korean giant has been detailing it rather big plans for the platform in the future.

You may remember last year that Samsung's 2014 tablet line up leaked early. History has repeated itself as the 2015 range of slates from the Korean company has also landed before any of the products launch.

I have been saying for a long time that Samsung is looking to Tizen long term and if the software is successful the Korean company will make a move from Android for its core products. A Samsung source confirmed this to me, although some commentators still see Tizen as a hobby for the company... It's not. With Tizen smartwatches, TVs, and now a first smartphone (the Z1 launched this week), Samsung is laying a foundation.